Here's a practice attempt at creating the exterior, above-ground areas of the volcanic Womb of Ashes. I did a lot of experimenting with different fills and techniques from all over the place, so there's a lot of clutter in the FCW file. When I'm happy with the results, I will create a fresh file that just brings in what I need.

This has a Creepy Crypts foundation with extra fills, symbols, and sheet effects inspirations brought in from Forest Trails, DD3, and Spectrum Overland for the volcano.

The terrain transparencies are from DD3. I love the dirt patches from Forest Trail but I really needed ones that were gray, not brown, and as I surmised, I couldn't change their color or use the RGB Matrix on them, even after exploding them. Creepy Crypts also has different terrain patches, but they're in darker shades of brown, not black/gray.

For the final lair, the volcanic Womb of Ashes, I wanted to have some sigils engraved in the floor where the final ritual is being performed by all the covens united as a Grand Coven of 13: the Drowned Sisters' Grotto (sea hags), the Withering Glade (forest hags), the Miremothers' Den (swamp hags), the Frostmaidens' Cradle (alpine hags), and the Arch-hag at the Womb of Ashes. (Plus, it gives me an excuse to once again use the Marine Dungeons brass inlay that I love so much.)

I had previously discovered that some of the varicolor symbols used in CA15 Heraldic Symbols (2008) can be set to the magenta color to work as an inlay. I was delighted to discover that some (not all, but some) of the vector symbols from the overland map sets could also be exploded and turned magenta to do the same.

So...here are my sigils for each coven. The Forest Hags' was the easiest -- it comes exactly as is from the Marine Dungeons annual. Originally I was going to use the symbol of the tree without the runed circle, but then I realized that the runed circle could tie them all together and strengthen a visual similarity. The shell for the Sea Hags' symbol also comes from Marine Dungeons. The snake for the Swamp Hags' sigil comes from CA15. The water waves, swamp grasses, mountains, and volcano all come from CC3 Vector BW overland style that comes with CC3. The fire symbols were ones I made for one of the Trial of the Elements map in the Atlas. I couldn't find snowflake images that I liked, so I designed those ones myself specifically for this.

I thought I was going to have to draw a lot of stuff myself, which is totally not my forte. Really delighted to find that some of the vector images could work for this.

Here's the interior of the lower levels of the Frostmaidens' Cradle caverns. Starting to work now on the final lair, the volcanic Womb of Ashes.

In a different thread, @Ricko was asking for advice on how mappers approach adding numeric labels on a map:

I thought I would add my two cents in a new thread for the topic, to make the discussion easier to find later.

I am certainly no expert on the matter, but when I am labeling things, I try to think of how it would be presented in a purchased campaign supplement. I try to make it flow in the order the party would be traveling, starting with #1 at the entrance and flowing from there to where they'd go next.

Of course, the party may have choices on which direction to go, so there may not be an obvious answer for what comes next after they enter. I just pick one direction and try to label things as contiguously as possible, clustering the numbering as best I can. So it's not necessarily clockwise, or left to right, or up or down -- it's just the route the way things the adventurers may go.

With cities and towns, it can vary. Sometimes I pick a road or city gate where the party may enter the city and then flow from there. Other times, I may start in a central area like a market square or town hall as the starting point. My numbering also clusters (like, every shop around a town square gets numbered before moving to the next area), and go neighborhood by neighborhood.

For overland maps...to be honest, I've never numbered overland maps. I've only used text labels, where it isn't the same issue.

I'd love to hear other people's ideas for how they approach.

Started to work on the underground interiors, including experimenting with creating places for the captives, who are encased in ice.

For those prisons, I experimented with putting the frozen water fill on a sheet with a variety of sheet effects, including beveling and a transparency effect. Unfortunately, the lighter frozen water fill has a bit of a transparency acne problem.

But that problem seems to disappear with the darker water, which also has a stronger contrast with the floor, so I'll just go with that.